


A Kind of Magic

by DoreyG



Category: Doctor Strange (2016)
Genre: Aftermath, Canonical Character Death, Comfort Sex, First Time, Frottage, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-10
Updated: 2016-11-10
Packaged: 2018-08-30 05:44:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8520706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoreyG/pseuds/DoreyG
Summary: In an alternate universe, in a secondary branch of time, he died gasping and broken under a heap of rubble. And despite what all logic tells him, he still feels the shadow of that.





	

**Author's Note:**

> It's the day after the American election, so I'm gonna use the cheesy title with little guilt.

After they defeat Kaecilius things largely return to how they were. Mordo is gone, yes, and the Ancient One is even more lost to them - but otherwise nothing much changes. Students are still there to be taught, the library is still there to be tended, magic is still there to manage. Things are allowed to fall back into their own patterns with barely a jolt along the way.

...Except.

It is silly, and _unbefitting_ in numerous ways, but he still can't get the details of what happened with Kaecilius out of his mind. They linger there no matter what he does, like a bad taste at the back of the throat that can't be washed out. He wakes up in the middle of the night sometimes, drenched with sweat and shaking helplessly. He loses his footing while tutoring the students upon occasion, and only comes back to himself when he's been thrown onto the floor with a boatload of nervous youngsters whispering around him. He'll be tending the library by himself sometimes, and will end up startling because he thinks he sees _something_ lingering in the corner of his eye.

The fact is that he died.

But, no, he _didn't_ die. The fact is that he _didn't_ die. Stephen Strange reversed the timeline, everything was set back to the way it used to be, he didn't receive a single scratch in their grand showdown and the whole world was better for it.

...But.

In an alternate universe, in a secondary branch of time, he died gasping and broken under a heap of rubble. And despite what all logic tells him, he still feels the shadow of that.

 

\--

 

He doesn't talk to anybody about it, of course. With the abandonment of Mordo and the death of the Ancient One he is the most senior figure left at Kamar-Taj, and he is determined to appear the part. He is a teacher, a scholar, a protector. He is the bedrock that grounds this entire magical place, and even if he does awake gasping from his sleep more nights than not he is _determined_ not to show it in front of any other.

...That is, until Stephen Strange visits one day. Strolling through a portal from New York with snow in his hair and a slight, maddening smirk curving his lips.

"So," Stephen - Strange? He is no longer sure how to refer to this man, once an annoying thorn in his side and now his undoubted savior - says when they're settled in a private room, steaming cups of tea in front of them and students kept away, "have you been having any odd dreams lately?"

He glances up sharply from his tea, is slightly surprised to find Stephen staring at him with an unexpected intensity. He half expected the man to toy and play and make sarcastic quips forever, and is somewhat stunned to find him finally grown up after all, "have you?"

"Answering a question with a question, good tactics," Stephen blows on his tea slightly, takes one scalding sip. He behaves with his tea as he does all things, far too recklessly for his own good "...Except, you know, I don't think this should be a place for tactics. It was an honest question, Wong."

He hesitates for a second, fingers tapping against the edge of his own burning hot cup.

...Maybe a little bit of recklessness is a good thing, he lifts the cup to his lips and takes his own scalding sip under Stephen's approving gaze, "it will sound silly, but my answer to your honest question is yes. There have been some dreams, some lingering fragments of what happened that have not yet settled in."

"Dark dreams," Stephen says softly, the approving look fading into something a little more haunted as he lowers his cup, "painful fragments, that seem a little sharper than they should be."

"Yes," he swallows a little, is somewhat disconcerted to find that the tea - for all its heat - doesn't really warm him at all, "this may well be irrelevant, considering what you just said, but will you answer my honest question in return?"

"I apologize for saying that you didn't have a sense of humour, Wong. I can practically _hear_ the quotes around that 'honest question', and I'm starting to regret using the term as a result," Stephen gives him a thin smile, otherwise remains looking haunted. Toys with the edge of his cup, but doesn't take another sip "...Yes, yes I have had dreams myself. Lingering fragments, sharp little musings, memories of things that didn't actually happen."

They sit in silence for a long few moments, the tea cooling between them and the building creaking around them in a way that is almost sinister.

"I had wondered," he says, trying to keep his tone light and probably failing worse than he has for years before this point, "what you did to defeat Dormammu, what you sacrificed to make him leave this world."

"My sacrifice was the same as your sacrifice, Wong, and I suspect we were both happy to make it," Stephen confirms what he has long suspected, sits back in his chair with a dark shadow sliding across his face, "except... Neither of us made it, not in this timeline. We came right up to the point of making it, we braced to make it, we _almost_ made it. But-"

"We didn't," he says softly, leaning a little towards Stephen despite himself.

"And yet we still remember," Stephen looks up at him, smiles without humour. He seems somewhat tired, somewhat lost in a way that he's sure is reflected on his own face, "the pain, the last choking moment of terror and regret, the utter darkness that followed after it... Yeah, I still remember it all."

"As do I," he hesitates for a moment, thinks for a second more. Reaches out slowly, and consciously breaches that last barrier between them, "Stephen... I have talked with nobody else about this, not even my very closest friends."

"Neither have I," Stephen gives another one of those wan smiles, reacts to the barrier breaching as expected - surging even further, and taking his hand in a grip so intimate that fire sparks along his veins for the first time since he died, "I tried to talk to the doctors at the hospital, I tried to talk to a therapist, I tried to talk to _Chrissie_... But the words have always frozen in my mouth, right up until now."

"Stephen," he says, decides that the time for wondering is past and doesn't even hesitate as he pushes onwards, "why did you come here and tell these things to me?"

"I thought-" Stephen lapses into silence for a long moment, then finally raises his head to look at him again. And he is long past the first flush of desperate lust, he has honestly not even thought about his desires for _years_ now, but when the man looks at him like that... "I thought that we could find comfort in each other. Does that sound odd?"

"Not at all," he says, surprised to find himself already slightly breathless, and smiles.

 

\--

 

His room is humble, as all rooms in Kamar-Taj tend to be. There is a bed and a wardrobe, but little else. He likes to keep things simple, organized in a way that leads to minimal tripping over when he wakes in the middle of the night from yet another nightmare and wants to do anything but fall straight back to sleep.

Stephen still looks faintly unimpressed, as he glances around. He supposes he should've expected that, really - the man may have lost a lot of his arrogance, but no tiger can completely change its stripes, "well."

"You were staying in much the same room a few months ago," he sighs, removing the sash around his waist for ease of access, "even now, you hardly live in the most luxurious of settings."

"Come on, the New York Sanctum isn't _that_ bad."

"My point is, that if you have a problem then it is by its very nature ridiculous," he interrupts, downright _refusing_ to give a smile, and drops the sash to the floor. Quickly follows it with his outer coat, until he is standing just in his loose trousers and undershirt, "and, besides - don't you have more important matters to be focusing on?"

Stephen smirks, at his directness, and abandons his unimpressed perusal of the room in favor of standing a little closer to him. He waves his cloak away, keeps waving it until it eventually slinks sulkily off across the room to wait in a corner. Yanks at the belts that hold his coat to him once sexily, twice angrily, thrice with a certain sense of embarrassment...

"You are ridiculous," he sighs, and shucks his undershirt to give Strange something a little more pleasant to think about. Reaches out, and makes short work of both belts and coat before Stephen can do more than give his chest an interested glance over, "how do you even dress yourself in the morning?"

"Coffee, lots of coffee," Stephen leans into him slightly, pauses at the last moment and wrinkles his forehead in an inconvenient burst of thought, "wait, is that a prohibited thing to say here?"

" _Stephen_."

"I mean, will I be cast out of Kamar-Taj all together for daring to express a preference for coffee over tea?" Stephen's forehead remains wrinkled, but he's steadily getting the impression that it's more mischievous than anything else, "I mean, this place does have a rather cultish devotion to the stuff..."

"Ridiculous," he repeats softly, refusing to let himself smile _again_ , and gets Stephen's shirt over his head and his trousers sliding down his hips before the man can do more than give a slightly confused blink, "get _on_ with it, Strange. Despite what you may have been led to believe, I am not actually capable of using the Eye of Agamotto just yet."

A few minutes ago, such a careless comment would've probably caused them both to freeze and retreat to nightmares again. But now, luckily, they are both too distracted to really pay much mind to it. Stephen makes a brightly thoughtful noise, almost a laugh, and makes quick work of his remaining clothes - stands before him unashamedly naked, with the confidence of a man who has been called handsome one too many times.

...Well, who is he to argue with a true description?

"I forgot to ask," Stephen murmurs, tone sultry and eyes smug as he sidles up close. Slips one hand into his loose trousers, and daringly glides the side of it along his cock, "are you against the whole kissing thing? I only ask, because if you want this to just be a casual hook up with no kissing involved I have no problems-"

He opens his eyes a little, from where he squeezed them shut against the onslaught of sensation, gives Stephen an unreservedly incredulous look, "honestly, sometimes I swear that you're more in love with the sound of your own voice than anything else."

"Oddly enough," Stephen only grins up at him, steadily guiding the loose fabric of the trousers down his thighs with that one hand still brushing maddeningly against his cock, "that's what many of my past partners have said."

He experiences a moment of sincere sympathy, for everybody that Stephen has taken to his bed before. Dismisses it quickly enough, in favor of greater things, and pushes Stephen back onto the bed. Divests himself of his remaining clothes quickly after, and climbs on top of the man as he props himself up on his elbows and raises one amused eyebrow.

"Stephen," he murmurs, even though the man's attention is already entirely fixed on him, and leans in. He has not kissed another person for a few years now, but Stephen makes it easy to remember how it goes - the press of lips, the slide of tongue, the faintly lingering taste of tea as the man opens himself up more fully than he ever thought possible, "for future reference, I am most certainly _for_ the whole kissing thing."

"Oh," Stephen breathes, and reaches up to drag him in again. Kisses him and kisses him, until both their lips are swollen "...Just out of interest, does that also mean that you're for certain other things?"

This time, he cannot help his smile.

Their bodies are already twined together on the bed, pressed against each other so intimately that he can feel every single breath that Stephen takes, but there is always room for improvement. He lifts one hand from the bed, where it was pressing into the mattress against Stephen's head, and trails it down the man's body. Traces it across his cheek, over his kiss swollen lips, down the arching line of his neck...

"Wong."

...And lower, until his questing fingertips - so pleasantly roughened from a life of work - find Stephen's nipple. He looks up at the man for a long moment, noting the already hazy look in his eyes, and then allows himself to smile again. Starts to circle his fingertips quickly, the callouses catching against Stephen's surprisingly soft flesh.

"Wong!"

Stephen is so _sensitive_ there. And he has not often experienced the sensation of delight in his life, has always considered it somewhat unseemly to tell the truth, but he most certainly does now. He takes his time over Stephen's body, learning - and appreciating - the sounds of him. The man gasps when he circles his fingertips, moans when he gently flicks his nails, downright _groans_ when he leans in to taste with his tongue. And when he stops altogether...

"Wong..."

Well, it cannot be for long. Not with Stephen making such enchanting noises in response to the very slightest of his touches. He resumes the tracing of his fingertips teasingly, taking it slow just to rile his partner up. Stephen is more bony than muscular, but his flesh is still pleasingly tense as he moves his exploration ever downwards. His stomach is firm and warm as he wriggles, his hips are delicate and warm as he attempts to buck, his thighs are hairy and warm as he flops back to the bed in tremblingly reluctant defeat.

" _Wong_."

His cock is hard and burning hot, as Stephen melts into his touch without a word of protest. He strokes it for a long few seconds, admiring despite himself. Traces his fingers along the length of it, and gets a choked off sound in response. Runs his fingernails gently around the ridges, and gets a pleading whine for his efforts. Glides his fingertips across the top of it, and gets a babble of begging words in reward. And when he finally shifts himself a little, rocks down into that ever so imploring heat...

" _Wong_!"

He cannot believe that he has resisted this for quite so long.

He takes them both in his hand, and starts to grind together. The friction is delicious, the heat incredible, the feeling of Stephen below him and focused _only_ on him possibly the best feeling in the universe. He braces himself on one hand, speeds up his strokes with the other. Looks down into Stephen's wide open eyes, staring pleadingly up at him, and notices the sweat on his brow and the sheer pleasure transforming his face into something incredible.

" _Wong_..."

And in that moment, he has never felt more alive.

 

\--

 

He rolls off Stephen afterwards, flops onto his back and stares up at the plain ceiling above. They both remain silent, skin cooling and heart rates settling back to normal. He notes, with some pleasure, that he has not felt this boneless in a _long_ time.

"Wong..." Stephen is the one to break the silence first, because of _course_ he is. Hesitates for a long moment after his opening volley, and then turns on his side to see his face, "this is going to sound extremely cheesy, but did the earth move for you too?"

He stares incredulously at the ceiling for a long moment, and then turns on his side to give Stephen the full force of his disbelief, "do you have super speed?"

"No."

"Do you have earthquake powers?"

"...No?"

"Then the earth did not actually move," he takes some pleasure, in Stephen's brief pout. Is still, thankfully, too boneless to indulge in more than that, "I will, however, admit that it was quite pleasant. Possibly the most pleasant time that I've had in..."

"Months?" Stephen finishes for him, pout being replaced by smugness with an almost startling speed.

He was going to say _years_ , but he doesn't want to feed the man's ego any more. He only rolls his eyes instead, flops onto his back again and resumes staring at the ceiling. There are a few cracks there, a few tiny imperfections in the material. Before, when he woke up from his nightmares gasping and sweat soaked, they looked like dark chasms... But now he sees that they are only hairline cracks, easily fixed with only the slightest effort.

"...Well," Stephen is the one to break the silence again, after a little longer this time. He shifts a little on the bed besides him, almost _reluctantly_ , "I should probably get going, after all of that. Back to the New York Sanctum, ready to face a brand new day.

It is just after twilight in Nepal, in New York it will doubtlessly be early morning at the latest. Stephen already looks tired in the corner of his vision, pale and faintly shaky in a way that it's very hard to ignore. He turns fully, pillows his head on one arm and gives the man a thoughtful look, "do you have anywhere you have to be, urgently?"

"My books," Stephen answers, blinking a little at his sudden question, "the sanctum, possibly the burger place just down the way."

He arches an eyebrow, summons up his best incredulous face again.

"...But none of those are urgent, I will admit," Stephen smirks, caught out, "why do you-?"

"You can stay here," he hesitates for a second, well aware that he sounds too eager. Gathers himself, and forges bravely on to detachment before Stephen can give him more than a faintly stunned look, "if you like. Get some sleep immediately, and deal with the - ah - spell-lag when you're better prepared to face it."

"Are you sure?" Stephen asks, looking somewhat disconcerted. He expected some level of smugness, instead he gets a level of uncertainty that just seems _wrong_ anywhere near Stephen Strange's handsome face, "I must admit, I am not the best sleeping partner. I snore, I flail, I mutter about bizarre medical procedures... And, ah, the _nightmares_ -"

"I often sleepwalk, I have been known to drool and once or twice I have awoken to find that I have performed minor spells in my sleep," he says, matter of fact, and watches with a certain sense of pleasure as some of the tension eases out of Stephen's frame, "and as for the nightmares... Well, you are not entirely alone in facing them."

"Unfortunately," Stephen sighs, but remains somewhat closer to relaxed.

"Perhaps we can help each other with them, just as we helped each other a few minutes ago," he says, trying to sound as casual as he can. Judging by the smirk that suddenly curves Stephen's lips he doesn't manage too well, but he can't entirely bring himself to care at the moment, "perhaps, if we try really hard, we can banish them altogether. It's worth a go, is it not?"

Stephen stares at him for a long few moments, through the dim light. The room remains silent, the cracks on the ceiling seem smaller by the moment.

"Yes," as Stephen smiles, and chuckles, and lays himself back down on the bed and into his arms, "yes, I rather suppose it is."


End file.
